Beat The Devil's Tattoo
by LolaBleu
Summary: *Violate AU* What happens when Violet comes back to the Murder House, new husband in tow, 7 years after running away when Tate tried to get her to commit suicide. Rated M for Ch. 3 on. Loosely based on The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note PLEASE READ:**

**I have updated this story with several new chapters and expanded others; some changes are small, but most aren't. The only chapters that remain the same are this one and the last one. If you're going to log in as a 'guest' to review chapters you've already reviewed please, please, please sign them with your username so I know who you are. Thank you all for reading, and reviews are always loved and appreciated!**

This is an A.U. loosely based on Kate Chopin's The Awakening. If you haven't read it, it really doesn't matter. If you have Edna=Violet, Leonce=Callum, Robert=Tate, Adele=Moira, Alcee=David, but honestly you won't miss anything if you haven't read it.

In my version of events Violet didn't die when she took the pills, and instead her and her family fled when Tate tried to get her to commit suicide, and the whole asinine Rubber Man debacle didn't happen.

I suck at making titles so I name it for the music I write to, in this case the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album _Beat The Devil's Tattoo_.

* * *

><p>I felt her presence in the house before I saw her. I thought I was dreaming at first, but then I heard her voice in the entryway. Low, strained, fake. I heard an unfamiliar man's voice speaking to her, excited, her trying to match the excitement. Before I could think about it I was there, invisible, watching them.<p>

* * *

><p>"Okay, open your eyes." I felt his hand slip off my face, and I opened my eyes. I thought for a moment I was going to throw up. It was just as I remembered it. The Tiffany stained glass, the paneled wood. I willed myself to wake up from the nightmare, because that's what this must be, but I knew it wasn't.<p>

Callum was watching me anxiously, his face dropping every second I stood in the entryway too shell-shocked for words. He put an arm around me. "I just wanted to surprise you, I knew you weren't happy about moving back to L.A., and I thought... well I know how much you love this place; you've had that picture of it on the mirror in your dorm-room since I met you."

I finally found my voice. It came out slightly hysterical, not sounding much like my own. "I'm sorry. I'm just freaking out a little bit that your parent's idea of a 'starter home' is several million dollars. This is too much." I shook my head, and looked down.

He just laughed, and whispered in my ear. "I know, but it's how they are. Are you happy?" I pulled him into a hug, so he couldn't see the lie on my face as I told him I was. I heard footsteps coming from the kitchen, and froze in place. "It's just the maid." Of course it was. Moira came into the entryway looking as horrified as I felt, but recovered herself quickly. She didn't let on that we knew each other, and I did the best I could to sound like a happy newlywed.

It wasn't until Cal was setting up his office in my dad's old one that we had a chance to talk privately. I was under the portico smoking when she walked out looking angrier than I'd ever seen her. "You shouldn't be here." She looked down at my hands, which were shaking, and made a little sound of disgust. "Still smoking those awful things."

"I quit for a while." I said distractedly. "I started again when I found out we were moving to L.A. If I'd known... I had no idea I was coming back to this house." My voice cracked, and she placed a bony hand on my shoulder before going into the house and getting me a large whiskey and soda. "Thanks." I drank half of it down in one, and took a deep calming breath.

She didn't ask, but I told her anyway. All about meeting Callum two years before at Harvard, how we were married after I graduated a few weeks before, and moved out here for his residency; the house being a ridiculous gift from his parents.

"Every girls dream. Marrying a man who's loaded and loves her." She said shrewdly. "You two have to leave. It's not safe here; you know that."

"What am I supposed to do Moira? Tell him 'Oh sorry, I know your parents just paid more cash for this house than most people make in a lifetime, but we have to leave, and I can't tell you why'?" I finished the drink. "How much danger will we be in?" She knew what I was really asking her.

"I don't know. He was watching earlier, but I don't know." I thought of the last time I saw him, running out of the house as he was trying to get me to commit suicide with him, 'like Romeo & Juliet'. "He's not here now." She said quietly as my eyes searched the air around us.

"Jesus." I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. "It feels like this house doesn't want to let go of me." I could have cried. After everything I was back here. I might as well have died when I took all those pills.

"Do you love him?" She asked quietly.

"Yes."

"Not like the monster in the basement though." Her tone was appraising, as if she was reading the answers written on my skin.

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

"You've grown up a lot Miss Violet." Approval in her voice. It made me smile that she still referred to me that way. "You made a woman's decision, not a girls." I heard Cal calling from the house and went inside.

"I'm starving. You want to go get dinner?" God, anything to get out of this house. I made him drive all the way out to Malibu to a seafood place right on the beach, and lingered as long as possible. In the car on the way back he took my hand in his, and kissed it. "I know you don't want to be here, Violet, but I promise I'll do everything I can to make you happy. Don't think I don't appreciate what you're doing." I had too much to drink with dinner, and was able to smile back at him all tipsy and goofy, making him laugh.

He held my hand the whole way home, driving with his other. I looked down at my hand in his and saw the wedding band on my finger. He made me happy, or at least he loved me, and I loved him, and he made me forget. I didn't love him like I loved Tate, but this was the right thing to do.

* * *

><p>I thought about all the nights I'd watched her before. None of them compared to this. It used to make me happy to watch her sleep; this was torture. I'd been waiting when they came in. Followed them upstairs, and thought about snapping his neck when he came up behind her and kissed her neck, palming her ass before they got in bed. She had traced something on his wrist with her fingers for a long time before finally falling asleep. I crept over to the bed, and saw he had a 'V' tattooed there. I looked down at her sleeping form, and loved and hated her in equal measure.<p>

I left her sleeping there with him, and stalked the house threatening every other inhabitant that they were to leave the new owners alone. I shadowed her every movement from them on. As I watched her I noticed the little changes; her hair was a few shades darker, and her body more womanly, but sill slender. Mostly though there was an awareness about her that she didn't have before. One thing that didn't change was that whatever was going on in her head, her face didn't give it away.

When he came home though, that was when I descended into hell. I spent a night watching him in his study as he poured over medical books, and wondering what the attraction was. Violet came in for a while he was working at the computer, and stood behind, one hand resting on his chest as they spoke. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I tried to convince myself that it was simply the sappiness of her kissing the top of his head and telling him she loved him before she went to bed, but it was jealousy. I would endure seven more years without her for a moment like that.

I watched the night, a week after they moved in, as they had sex. I wanted to paint the wall with his brains at her sharp little intake of breath when he entered her. I watched as she moaned and writhed, really watched her, but in a thousand tiny ways it was different than when I was inside her. There was no love there, not for her anyway, and I wondered if I should have just let her die when she took all those pills. I wondered if we'd both be happier if I had.

* * *

><p>We had been here a week. I was in hell. Officially. Population 1. When Moira walked in the kitchen I was smoking at the island and looking over my course schedule for graduate school. "Doesn't it bother him?" I looked up. "The smoking. He's a doctor."<p>

"It does, but he gets it. He used to smoke too when I met him. I told him I'd quit again once things settle down. Speaking of which, why's the house to quiet?"

"I don't know." She did, but she wasn't going to tell me.

"Why is he keeping everyone in line? I didn't think he'd want me here?" She refused to meet my eye and kept scrubbing away at the counter. I sighed. "Well if we're going to get out of here you guys better put on a show. Hey, maybe you could try and seduce Callum like you did my dad."

She looked at me stonily. "It doesn't work with him." I just gaped at her. "He doesn't see me as a sex object. It's only their perception of me, you know."

"He's not gay, is he?" I really felt I'd asked that question more than enough in my life. "Doesn't matter, Patrick or Chad could take a pass at him."

She just rolled her eyes. Well, eye. "No, he loves you."

"I never thought that would be so inconvenient." I stubbed out my cigarette. "Do you know where those boxes of pictures went? I can't find them."

"I put them in the hall closet upstairs, so they'd be out of the way." I trudged up the stairs and checked the two closets without finding them, so I started checking the empty rooms, and found them in the middle of my old bedroom. I glared at them momentarily from the doorway. I know Moira didn't put them there. "Funny." I said dryly and took them back to the master bedroom. The tape had been ripped off the top, and they'd clearly been pulled out of the box and put back in haphazardly. I put on some Nick Cave, and started sorting through them. Most of them were going downstairs, but there were a half dozen I wanted in here, all of Cal and I when we were in school.

I was adjusting one of us spectacularly drunk at a friends house when the music cut off. I tilted the frame and saw Tate standing by the bed. "Why did you marry him? The money?" His voice was harsh, angry. I couldn't see his eyes, but I was sure they were solid black and slightly manic. I turned to face him, and he looked just as he always did. My heart skipped a beat just like it always did. "Why did you come back?" His tone was unbearably bitter.

"You think I wanted to come back? If I'd known he'd bought this place I wouldn't have gotten on the plane. I never wanted to come back here." I walked over and started sifting through the photos on the bed. "And I married him because I love him." I snapped, walking away with more pictures.

"Bullshit." He spat. "I've been watching you two; it's not love."

I let out a mirthless chuckle. "Why? Because he hasn't tried to kill me yet?"

I heard him rush up behind me, and braced for the blow I was sure was coming, but all I felt was his breath hot on the back of my neck. "Tell me, was it me or him you were thinking about when he was inside you last night?"

I turned my face to his and sneered, "You didn't hear me crying out your name last night did you? And why haven't you ghosts gone crazy yet? Moira told me you guys usually have the living out of here in a few days. Does it make you hard to watch me fuck him? Is that why you're keeping us around?"

I slipped out from in front of him, and as I walked away a picture went whizzing past my head and smashed into the wall in front of me. When I turned he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

I had been watching for months, and I nothing I saw convinced me that I was wrong when I told Violet that her and _her husband_ - even the voice in my head sneered out the term - didn't love each other.

Well, more accurately, she didn't love him. Not like he loved her. Not like she had loved me. Every day he'd come home and always follow the same routine, always, no matter how exhausted he looked; finding her as soon as he was through the door. There was the expected hug and chaste kiss as he sat down with her and told her about his day. Every single insignificant detail poured out of his mouth. He wanted her opinion on everything, valued it above everyone else's it seemed.

She listened to him patiently, intently as he talked, offering up little comments here and there, but it was an unequal exchange. She told him next to nothing about her life, what was going on in her head, anything. It made me hopeful because it seemed ridiculous that he thought he had any grasp of her, and I thought that maybe his lack of prying past the superficial crumbs she gave him meant he really didn't love her either.

That bubble burst as soon as she came home one day looking upset and after some needling she admitted to missing her mom and brothers, who she hadn't seen since their wedding. I wasn't at all surprised when he came home a few days later with an envelope bearing a round trip ticket to Florida, first class. I fleetingly thought of cutting the brake lines in his car as I watched her kiss him 'thank you', taking care of her in a way I never could.

When she left he dutifully carried her bags downstairs, drove her to the airport even though he couldn't go with her because he couldn't get the time off work. With her gone on a long weekend I was lost, again. I didn't sink into the fabric of the house this time though. Instead I holed up in her old room, taking the opportunity to dig into her life.

Not that I hadn't before, but it was only cursory, too aware that someone living could walk in at any moment to thoroughly riffle through her stuff. I thought she might have known, the way she'd look at some object with annoyance like it wasn't perfectly how she left it, even though I was always careful that way. She never said anything about it to anyone, even Moira.

I started with her desk; nothing exceptional there just pens, printer paper and stacks of neatly labeled files. I pulled a few out, setting them down in the spot her laptop usually occupied. Each contained a neatly typed top sheet, the name of what I soon figured out were movies bolded at the top, then the year it was released, the director, etc. listed below with a summary at the bottom. Some files contained only that, others had pages of her notes neatly organized.

They didn't concern me much since they weren't personal. I put them back and pushed myself up to rummage in the closet. She had hung up clothes, cold weather stuff meant to combat the chill of snow that she'd never need in L.A. I searched the pockets, coming up with a half empty pack of cigarettes, chapstick, and movie ticket stubs.

I pulled down the boxes on the shelf above the clothes, two were heavy with old textbooks, highlighted, and full of notes scribbled in the margins in her handwriting. One of them contained what looked like every paper she'd written in college; her diploma, framed, was under them. I didn't bother reading them, they wouldn't give me any insight into what was going on with her.

I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I pulled the last two boxes down though. One contained various knickknacks, souvenirs from trips she'd taken, the other packed with plastic folders full of pictures, neatly labeled. There were several with the names of cities, both here and abraod, on the front with dates under them, clearly from trips she'd taken; only the ones dated in the last two years contained images of Callum or the both of them.

There was another folder labeled "Mom, Dylan, and Jeffrey" that had pictures of Vivien with two boys who were Ben in miniature; showing them ranging in age from lumps in blankets to their first school pictures. There were others labeled 'friends', 'Cal's Family', but none of Ben, which amused me probably more than it should.

Everything that I found though had shown me one thing: there was a gaping black hole in her life. She had nothing that showed her life before the last four years. Nothing; no journals, notes, pictures, anything. It was like she sprung into being as a college Freshman and had started living her life from that point forward. I wondered if she'd simply thrown anything that reminded her of it in the trash, or done something with more symbolism, like burning it. I wondered too how much_ that guy_ really knew about her.

She came home, safe and sound, and I went back to watching, cataloging every little thing she did; things no one else would have noticed, and he definitely didn't. She never seemed comfortable in his arms, never wanted to stay there any longer than civility allowed. She'd twist out of his grasp when they watched T.V.; playfully bat away his hands as she washed dishes, always finding some task to use as an excuse even though Moira was around. He took it as kindness that she was trying to help out the aged maid, but I knew better.

The best part, the absolute best part, was watching them sleep because she never curled around him the way she did me, and every time he did it to her she'd wait until he was asleep to move and get comfortable in such a way that he was barely touching her. I loved it, and not just because I hated seeing him touch her, but because when she thought no one was watching she hated it too.

* * *

><p><em>I should be working on my research project<em> I thought as I looked out the window. I was standing at the window of my old room watching the strong winds send leaves and debris through the air. The room was now my study; it looked almost the same, minus a bed. We had been here four months and the house had been eerily quiet; the only ghost I'd seen since that first week was Moira, and whenever I brought it up she looked angry and refused to talk about it.

I caught a movement out of my peripheral vision and turned to see Tate sitting in the chair I usually read in. He was looking down and running his palms over the fabric as if feeling it for the first time. "You going to tell me why the house has been so normal, or do I have to guess?"

"Guess."

"If it's not haunted we won't leave. You know I don't want to be here, and it's your way of keeping me trapped because I can't tell him why I want to leave without sounding insane."

"I want to understand." He said quietly. "I want to understand why you married him." He never raised his eyes.

"I don't think you will."

"Try."

I sat down across from him, putting the cigarettes and lighter on the small table between us. He reached for them with shaking hands, never meeting my eyes. "I love him, not like I loved you, but I do love him. I don't want to hurt him, I want good things for him, and he makes me happy. He makes me forget, or he did before we came here. He's a good person, and he's good to me, and it's nothing to do with money. He wants me to be happy. This house... that's what he was trying to do. I had a picture of it up on my mirror in my dorm room forever; he thought it was because I loved the house."

"Why did you have it?"

What a stupid fucking question. "It reminded me of you."

He finally raised his eyes to me. "Do you still love me?" His voice was guarded, but there was an awful note of hope deeply under that.

"There's no simple answer to that, Tate." I looked at the ring on my finger. "There never has been."

"Why not?" His voice was unexpectedly loud and it startled me.

"Because what if I do love you? What does that look like? You're dead. Are we going to be Wendy and Peter Pan until I die? Or should I just kill myself right now? I didn't want that 6 years ago, and I don't want it now. I'm not you."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"You're happy here with this semblance of life. It was your end, it always was; you had been dead long before those bullets ever hit you. I'm not you. I didn't want to be stuck in limbo six years ago, and I don't want it now."

"You wanted to be stuck in a half-life with a man you don't love." His tone was sharp, biting.

"You can lie to him, even to yourself, but you can't lie to me. I know you, Vi. He may not see the things that I see, but I know you don't love him."

"Don't be so naive." I snapped. "You think what we had is the only kind of love there is? Just because it's different doesn't mean it isn't love."

"Do you think everybody gets handed that gift of what we had?" He snapped back. "You've always been loved, since the day you were born. Your parents loved you, your friends loved you, I loved you, and then you got married and He loves you."

"I don't -"

"You take it for granted that you will be loved." He finished with an irritated huff.

I leaned back in the chair and looked at him. "Love is rarely enough." I kept the anger out of my voice; it was a simple statement of fact. "I don't know what you've said to the other ghosts, but we need to move out-"

He cut me off, slightly panicked. "Why?"

"Because it feels like this house won't let go of me, and I don't want to die here, Tate!"

"I told you I wouldn't let anyone or anything hurt you, Vi." His voice was so soft and gentle it made my eyes prickle with tears at the memories it brought back.

"Is that why you follow me around? Is this protection what you're doing?"

"I just want you to be near you. Even if I have to watch you with him every night, you're here."

I couldn't take the pain in his voice and on his face anymore, so I walked around and sat on the table between us, reaching my hand out and cupping his cheek, which was wet with tears. "Please Tate, you have to stop. It only hurts you... and me."

He put his hand over mine, and I felt that still familiar aching need for him. "I'll stop when you stop loving me." He leaned in towards me, and I walked out if for no other reason than to hide my tears.

* * *

><p>"She made the right choice." Moira walked out of the shadows of the basement. "Even if you can't see it she did. She married someone who loves her, and who can give her a beautiful life. You're not doing her any favors keeping her here."<p>

"What if I don't care?"

"Are you going to watch her forever? Watch her have kids and raise a family? She wanted a life. She loved you, but she didn't want to die. She made the choice she could live with."

"I hope she has girls." Little girls that looked just like her.

"You're not thinking of what's best for her, only what's best for you."

"I don't care."


	3. Chapter 3

The water was freezing. The air might have been hot still, despite the fact that it was almost Halloween, but the Pacific was telling me fall was going to be here soon. My teeth were chattering as I got out, slogging my way back up the sand to the big blanket I spread out, anchored with books.

Even during the day the beach was abandoned, completely empty. I could have pulled my top off and sunned myself without worrying about being caught. I laid on my stomach, hiding my face in my folded arms as I let the sun warm me up despite the harsh breeze, another harbinger of the Fall that would only last a few weeks before bleeding into winter.

I wondered if Tate would be here next week. If Halloween had fallen on a friday this year I might have run into him. _No_, I thought to myself, _no you're too much of a coward_. And I was. If I ran into him I'd have to explain what I was doing here in the first place and there was no way I could pull off some bullshit oh is this The Beach? or I just liked it so much the one time we were here. L.A. was nothing but beach for miles; he wouldn't buy that I was coming here for some reason that wasn't him.

I hadn't seen Tate in weeks, since he came to visit me in my office as I studied, and I wondered if he had taken my advice and stopped following me around. I couldn't even will myself into believing that for a second. He definitely would have seen me come home last weekend, would have picked up on my mood even if Cal didn't. But he couldn't have known the cause of it.

He couldn't have known that at the party he probably watched me pull on my best Doctor's Wife dress for that one of Cal's colleagues came up to drunkenly fawn over him to me, telling me how lucky I was. He couldn't have known that my bitchy comments to her were entirely due to being annoyed with her drunkenness, and not the fact that even if she didn't say it, and Cal was oblivious to it, she wanted to fuck him.

Tate couldn't have known that my quiet and reserved mood for the past week wasn't because I was jealous, but because I wasn't. When it came down to it, I really didn't give a shit about Callum sleeping with her as long as I could ignore it. The only anger I'd feel was if they were careless and I got humiliated, got labeled publicly as being married to a cheater. I had my fill of that being the daughter of one.

He couldn't have known either that his words, that Cal and I didn't love each other, were ringing in my ears for the last six days. I didn't have any illusions. Everything I had told Tate about loving Cal was the truth, but it didn't mean I was in love with him. If I was in love with him the very idea of him even thinking about fucking his co-worker would have been enough to send me into a jealous rage, the same way reading Tate's words about girls that he fantasized about in high school had.

I knew when I married Cal that he loved me more than I loved him. I knew it, and I married him anyway because no one had been devoted to me like that since Tate, and I knew how rare it was. Callum's heart would never belong to anyone else the way it belonged to me, and even if he wasn't perfect, even if his way of taking care of me was making sure I didn't want for anything materially instead of emotionally, I felt guilty.

I felt guilty that I didn't love him the same way. That even if I did love him in my own way I still felt like a harpy for marrying him. He hadn't made me forget Tate, he had just been enough to make me as happy as I could be without him. Tate was still the one I thought about when I couldn't sleep. When something was wrong and I wanted to talk to someone, I'd lay in bed and close my eyes and pretend I was talking to him, holding entire conversations with him in my head.

On the days when I came home to an empty house and laid in bed for hours bringing myself with my own fingers, Tate was the one I thought about. I knew he watched, and usually I was thankful I didn't see him because I knew with lust clouding my brain I wouldn't have been able to stop myself acting out my fantasies. Callum had always been a last resort when it came to that. I wanted Tate, and when I couldn't have him my fingers were the next best thing, after that came any guy who wasn't Tate - even my husband.

Now though, as I felt the sun and wind caressing my skin on the same beach Tate had denied me so many years ago, I regretted it. His was the only touch I wanted if I was honest with myself, and if he didn't know it by the way I was discomfited by Cal's touch he was blind. He knew it, he had to, because he knew me, and he knew what I looked like when I was in love.

I rolled over, flinging an arm over my eyes as reality threatened to crush me. Tate was still dead, and I was still alive, and nothing could change that. I still loved him, still wanted him, and nothing could change that either. Even if we still loved each other, even if my heart belonged to Tate the magnitude of the reality I had created for myself wasn't something I could just forget or dispel. I belonged to someone else now, even if pieces of me never could.

As I lay there I recalled Tate's words about the ocean making think of endless possibilities, that life could hold so much more than it did in this moment. Just like him though I felt like I was trapped. I wouldn't shove enough coke up my nose to put down a horse or go on a shooting rampage like he had, but of the two options I had neither seemed much better.

I could keep up the lie of my marriage. I could keep myself carefully schooled to live in Murder House and not give away that as I sang along to nearly every song on my iPod my mind was warping the lyrics until they were all about Tate and I; that thoughts of him permeated me until I felt as insubstantial as he should have. I could have kept up the facade that tricked everyone into believing I was happy.

Or I could open that door that I locked so long ago and let Tate back in.

* * *

><p>Violet smelled like chemical-coconut sunscreen and girl sweat as she threaded her key into the door. I'd stayed on the porch all day after following her down the stairs this morning, heavy bag slung over her shoulder, and cloaked in a cotton dress that her sandal clad toes barely peeked out of as she walked. I knew what it hid; the plum colored bikini that contrasted so sharply with her pale skin despite weekly visits to the beach.<p>

I wondered again, for the hundredth time, if the beach she goes to every friday when she doesn't have classes is the same one I took her to. I like to think it is, like to imagine her stretched out in the sand with a book propped up on her knees, but realistically I know she was only there once, at night, and probably wouldn't be able to find it again if I drew her a map.

Normally when she gets home she's peaceful looking, not today though. Today she looks exhausted, like all the weariness of her short life has been heaped on her shoulders in one day. Her slow pace up the stairs worried me, but before my paranoia at her well-being could run away with me I notice the salt crusted in her hair, remnants of swimming in the ocean, and decided she'd probably just tired herself out that way.

She's stretched out in one of the chairs in her room, head back and eyes closed, puffing away at a joint before long. Half-way through the weariness seems to dissipate, and she stubs it out, trying to rake her fingers through her hair and being foiled by tangles cemented into it with salt. Instead she scrubbed at her face for a moment before stubbing out joint carefully, preserving as much of it as she could before going to the desk and crouching down in front of it.

I watched over her shoulder as she removed all the files from the bottom drawer of her desk, tipping up the false bottom I'd missed when I searched it, and pulling out two fat plastic folders. She didn't even bother putting the displaced files back, just walked back over the coffee table, dropped the heavy envelopes on top and walked out, closing the door behind her.

I hoped it was the sign I'd been waiting for, for months. That even if she didn't talk to me, it was meant for me. I practically tripped over my own feet in my haste to sit down, sloppily disgorging the contents of the top folder in my lap only to have my heart stutter and stop when I looked down to find my own face and a headline staring back up at me.

My fingers were shaking as I flipped through the contents, finding news articles and papers written for psychological journals, even what looked like someone's doctoral dissertation in sociology, exploring school shootings, mine among them. I was horrified, not because of what I did - I remembered everything - , but because Violet knew; knew everything I'd tried to hide and protect her from.

I didn't really read any of it, I doubted anyone would have known and recorded the two biggest factors that influenced me: Constance and this fucking house. Some of the pages had the dates they were printed out, and they were anything to go by, Violet had made a habit of researching everything she could find about me and what I did for years.

I didn't know what to make of it, so I shoved it back in the folder and re-lit the half joint she'd left perched on the rim of the ashtray, trying to find some calmness in the sticky sweet taste it and her lips. It was closest I'd gotten to kissing her since that day she fooled me into thinking she was staying forever.

I grabbed up the second envelope scared of what I would find, but needing to see it anyway. If the other folder was meant to horrify, this one was meant to soothe. Pictures of us tumbled out, followed by every note I'd ever left under her pillow for her to find when she came home from school or went to bed.

There were other things too, things that only Constance would have had that she must have given Vi. I wondered when she had done that because I hadn't seen her next door, ever. There was a picture of Addie and I, some cheap medals I'd won running track, a few other things I didn't know Constance had saved, but was glad they were in the care of Violet now.

I fingered through them fondly, forgetting that Violet was even in the house until I heard her the water running in the bathroom down the hall. I shoved them back into the folder, dropped both of them on her desk before following the noise into the bathroom, taking up my usual seat on the floor to watch her.

It amused me watching her bathe, always had, mostly because I found her habit of reading amidst the steam and bubbles hilarious; I always hoped she'd drop the book just to see her reaction. Tonight though she didn't have a book, and after everything that small change worried me. She still seemed lost in her head, only slathering conditioner into her wet hair and brushing out the tangles crusted into it with cursory attention.

I didn't know what to make of it, any more than I knew what to make of the contents of the folders she'd left for me. I had given her plenty of reasons to be scared of me, and now she knew even more. But she wasn't, or at least she didn't look it. She hadn't been scared the two times I'd talked to her since she came back, and really if she felt fear, felt real, she wouldn't have set foot in this house no matter how obligated she might have felt.

But I didn't know what she wanted from me, if she wanted anything. Maybe all she wanted was for me to know she knew. Her actions had undoubtedly been a message for me, but I needed time to decipher it.


	4. Chapter 4

I could hear music coming from the living room as soon as I entered the house, and it surprised me; I didn't think anyone else would be here on Halloween. Even Violet and her - whatever - weren't supposed to be home until much later. I had been to the beach, the same little cove I took Violet to so long ago, and watched the sunset before I came back. I followed the sounds and found her lying on the couch, legs draped over the arm, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. She had stripped down to a skirt and tank top, and was bobbing her feet to the music.

I went into the kitchen to find an open bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the counter; judging from the empty soda cans she was on her second of the night. I took a couple of long pulls from the bottle before I went back in the living room and watched her. Her glass was empty on the floor now, her fingers in it twiddling the ice cubes in the time with the beat.

She was relaxed; the first time I'd seen her completely relaxed since she got back. Probably because she thought she had the place to herself for once. As the record played through, the room was filled with the sound of loud distorted guitar riffs, rolling over each other like lazy waves. She started undulating with the beat, and as she ran a hand through her hair I felt my cock twitch to life.

She got up carrying her glass back to the kitchen; hips dropping as she walked, the music swaying through her. I had a perfect view of her ass moving under the floaty fabric of her skirt as she did so. She looked sensual yet languorous; if I had seen her look sexier I wasn't sure when. Maybe it was the liquor, but as I watched her move through the room I realized what was missing from her marriage; in whatever pragmatic way she loved him, she didn't lust for him.

When she passed out of view I put the song on repeat and followed her into the kitchen. She had her hands splayed out on the counter, the rest of her body still moving to the music, her head dropped forward and eyes closed as she mouthed the lyrics.

I was hard and buzzed and really didn't give a fuck about the consequences because seeing her like that was an unbearable tease. I came up behind her and put a hand on each hip, pulling her into me so I could grind into the cleft of her ass. She leaned her head back against my shoulder, hands on top of mine as I dipped down to play my lips and tongue across the sensitive skin of her neck; her hips continuing to sway, making me painfully hard against her.

I ran my hands up her sides, felt the shadow of her ribs under them, and pressed her breasts together, pinching and rolling her nipples between my fingers as I kneaded them, making her let out a little hiss of air through her barely parted lips. I had dreamed about this for six years, but no memory could compete with how she felt pressed against me, her skin hot and needing, yielding to my touch.

She turned her face to mine, lust and longing in her heavily lidded eyes, and pressed her lips against mine. There was no hesitancy there, no internal conflict; I wasn't sure if she gave up, gave in, or just didn't care, and I was too lost in her to worry about it. I reached down and ran a hand up her thigh, around her ass, lifting her skirt up with it to knead her through the thin cotton of her panties, my other hand lifting her shirt off with her help.

I pushed her down on her elbows against the counter as I kissed and licked her back, enjoying the light sheen of sweat that covered it, pressing a finger into her and undoing my belt and pants with the other, shimmying them down my hips. Her breathing was hard, ragged, and I slipped another finger in, coating it in her wetness before I rubbed it down my length making it slick. She looked at me over her shoulder, bottom lip caught between her teeth, as I tugged her panties off, and pressed into her.

Fuck she felt better than I remember; my back arched as I ground into her as deeply as I could, an involuntary groan escaping my lips. She pressed back into me, rocking her hips, aching for movement, and I was happy to oblige.

I leaned back over her, kissing her shoulders and neck as I thrust in and out, long and slow; letting her feel every inch. It didn't matter that she was married and I was dead, and we were both at varying levels of intoxication; those were worries for another day, not when I was fucking in and out of her, and she wasn't wet and tight around my cock, her body burning under me. I felt her walls flutter as I kissed the nape of her neck, and it made me smile; the time apart hadn't changed her so much.

I thrust harder and quicker, one hand on her hip the other on her shoulder, hitting that spot deep inside her that left her legs trembling, and her walls clenching around me. I could feel the heat building up inside her, and between that and the sound of her small gasping moans I wasn't sure if I was in heaven or hell; either way I was happy.

I slipped a hand around and caressed her nub making her shake and scream as she came. As she quivered under me in the aftermath of her orgasm I thrust into her hard, bottoming out, her walls clenching spasmodically around me milking my cum into her. I collapsed against her, resting my forehead against the slick skin of her shoulder, catching my breath.

She pulled me against her for a kiss, her tongue playing in my mouth before she left me in the kitchen to go upstairs and wash the smell of me off her skin. She had a small smile on her lips, and her walk every bit as illicit as it was before. I watched her until she disappeared and finished off the bottle of Jack in the basement. 

* * *

><p>There was a light knock on my door, and I looked up from the book I was reading to see Tate watching me. "Can I come in?"<p>

"Seriously? You're asking?" He hadn't asked permission to be in the same room with me since the first time I met him, and put me on edge.

"Yeah." He said awkwardly.

"Okay." I shoved my notebook into the book to hold my place, and watched him take the seat opposite me.

"Have you been avoiding me?" He was picking at the frayed edge of his sweater.

"That's pointless since you're invisible most of the time; can't avoid what isn't there."

"You know I'm always here." He finally looked up, and his face was hard; a mask of barely controlled anger. "I notice since we fucked in the kitchen you haven't been home much."

I just stared at him, floundering with what to say, because as much as he might have longed to hear You're not the one I've been avoiding I wasn't sure it was the right thing, even now. "I haven't been avoiding you. I'm writing a research paper. I'm not going to be dicking around the house all day." It was completely true, even if it was an excuse, and I knew he could not have cared less.

"Interesting turn of phrase."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean I'm not your personal dick there to fuck whenever you get bored, or drunk, or whatever it was." He said angrily.

I had been afraid of this. "What did you think was going to happen? We'd fuck and then live happily ever after? It doesn't change the situation." It doesn't make you not dead and me not married, I added silently.

"So you're planning on living here and fucking both of us? Playing the happy wife with him, and the whore with me?" My hand twitched towards the book next to me; it was so tempting to chuck it at his face.

"What does it matter to you as long as you're inside me?" I said, matching his anger.

"All your pretty talk about loving him, and not wanting to hurt him, and whatever other bullshit you spewed. The only person you care about is yourself; it doesn't matter who you hurt as long as you get what you want. You're no better than your cheating scumbag father."

That's when I threw the book, which he neatly ducked. "Get out!" I shrieked. He left with one last withering glare, slamming the door behind him, and I hid my face in my hands, sinking further down into the chair, trying to disappear into the fabric.

I knew I had so many more options than the two I was presented with at the moment, but I didn't feel like they were real. It would be so easy to leave and never come back, to walk out the door from both paths offered me: Callum and Tate. But I couldn't, they were the only two that felt real. No matter how far away I ran I'd still always want my Ghost Boy, would still always be trapped in a half-life without him.

But I couldn't stay here alive either. Trying to walk the middle path between them, alive and with Tate, but belonging to someone else was impossible. As much as I might have wanted it, wanted to have my cake and eat it too, it was just as impossible as leaving. I couldn't expect Tate to love me enough to let me be with someone; to shove that in his face, and make him live with it.

I was still there, hours later, when Cal got home, pretending to be asleep as his said my name softly from the door. Still trying to find my way in this bog of conflicting emotions.


	5. Chapter 5

I thought you weren't supposed to be home tonight?" I mumbled sleepily. I opened my eyes and looked at the arm around me and realized it wasn't Cal's, and rolled over to see Tate, his face inches from my own.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

I reached up and ran a finger over his bottom lip. I couldn't tell if he closed his eyes because he enjoyed my touch, or if he was holding back tears. Either way, the anger that had twisted his features the last time I saw him was absent. "I know." I kissed his lips softly, and he tightened his hold on me, pulling me closer.

"I think I get it now... what you see in him. I was watching you two when you got home last night." Cal and I had gone to a concert, gotten home late, then stayed up later talking and messing around like little kids, culminating in eating ice-cream out of the tub at three in the morning before we trudged off to bed. "He brings out the light in you."

I pressed my forehead to his. "Something like that."

"I don't."

I considered it for a moment before I replied. "It's not black and white like that. It's hard to explain. When I'm with him he does bring out that side of me, but that's only one side of me. When I'm with you it's more a balance, I guess. I'm more gray, but it's all of me, not just one side."

His lips twitched into a watery smile, but it faded quickly. "Do you still love me?" I stopped breathing, stopped moving altogether. "Vi?" His voice was wheedling, but I couldn't make the words come out. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes, leaking down my face, and finally I choked out a sob. He pulled me close to him, and I buried my face in his chest as he rubbed my back. "I love you too." I felt his tears dripping into my hair. "I don't care how or why you came back to me, you did."

"Yes you do." I pulled away and looked in his eyes. "It hurts you, seeing me with him. This, what happened, it doesn't make it easier for you."

"You either."

"I know, but-"

He cut me off. "I don't care, even if I have to share you..." His voice cut off, and he closed his eyes focusing on getting the words out. "I don't care as long as I can be with you in some way."

"You can't know what you're asking me." I breathed. I had watched infidelity rip my family apart; knew firsthand the damage it could do. But at the same time my conscience hadn't ached after what happened in the kitchen, not for Callum anyway.

"I do know; infidelity ruined my family too. It was easy to be judgmental..."

"It was easier to be judgmental about it than to admit that given the right circumstances everyone is capable of doing it, and maybe we too harshly judged our parents because it was convenient and easy?" I offered.

"Yeah. I guess it was easier to throw stones then, you know?"

I did. That was the one nagging thought I couldn't get rid of afterwards. I hated my dad for what he did to my mom, but I realized what I had hated was not that he cheated it was the pain he inflicted on her. He was stupid, careless, and because of that she hurt; his stupidity was the problem in retrospect. But I understood now why he had gotten involved with Hayden in the first place, why he had been unable to resist going back.

I ran my fingers in his hair, and closed my eyes, focusing on the feel of him. From the deep recesses of my brain a quote I'd once read came floating back. _Climbing Mt. Everest is an intrinsically irrational act; the triumph of desire over reason_. Tate was my Everest; he always had been, and always would be. "I don't care either."

He pulled me into him, his lips against mine, and I felt how long it had been since I'd kissed someone, really kissed them. "Go back to sleep." He murmured when he pulled away.

I pressed into him, breathing him in, wanting to sink into him as he held me. When I woke up he was gone, and Cal was trying to be quiet as he packed suitcase. I pushed myself up, resting my chin on my knees and yawning hugely. "You're going to be dead tired."

"We're planning on sleeping all day, then hitting the casino at night." He said off-hand. "I'll be back Sunday morning, meet me at the church with my-."

I rolled my eyes and cut him off. "I know, I know. I'll pick your tux up from the dry cleaners tomorrow, and bring it with me when I meet you at the chapel. Try not go broke on hookers and blow." I teased, just like always. It was so easy to slip on that mask that made him think everything was okay, just like I had a few nights before when we went out; the same night Tate had watched us in the kitchen.

Maybe it was just because I'd done it for so long, been able to con myself for so long into thinking I was happy, that I had no problem convincing Callum of it either. He brushed a quick kiss to my cheek when the airport shuttle honked insistently in the driveway, here to carry him off for a bachelor party weekend in Vegas. Hopefully he wouldn't come home with any teeth missing.

I stared out the window, not seeing much since rain was beating against it heavily. I had three days to myself, and I couldn't even remember what I'd planned to do with myself. The only thing I wanted now was Tate, and I didn't even know how I should go about that; he and Moira just always seemed to appear. Should I just call his name and hope he appears? Start searching for him, room to room? Would he just appear like he always did?

I sat, idly twisting my gaudy wedding ring around my finger before I finally pulled it off and dropped it in my nightstand unceremoniously. In the end it really didn't matter, he found me, like he always did.

* * *

><p>The day had come and gone, leaving a lingering rain in its wake. We lingered too, in piles of down stuffed blankets and pillows in the guest room. It was dark inside, and for my part I was too comfortable in his arms to get up and turn on a light, but maybe he was just lazy.<p>

I was content here, with him, feeling all the things I should have felt when I said "I do"; revealing in the feel of his hands on me again and again, eager to relearn the contours of my body and map the new curves he hadn't had the chance to explore before.

It was the perfect reunion. He told me how grateful he was that I got the chance to do the things I wanted in life. I told him how I never forgot about him, how he was almost always the last thing I thought of before I fell asleep. All those conversations I'd had with him in my head, I had with him as we laid together, naked and sticky and sated.

All the things we hadn't had the chance to talk about before were said now, as I could hear his words reverberating through his chest when I laid against him sleepily, fingers wandering of their own accord until they made more talk impossible for a while.

He delighted in how wet he could make me, how much I wanted him. He knew I always had to fake it with a tube of K-Y for Cal. I should have cared that he was marking my flesh, marring it with tattoos made by his lips and teeth, considering I'd been seeing my husband again soon. I found that I didn't care though; sure I'd slather concealer over them to spare Cal's feelings, but seeing the marks in the shape of Tate's mouth made me smile, more so when his fingers traced them fondly.

Hunger eventually forced us to stumble downstairs. If I didn't know better I'd think we were the only two people here. I was just about to ask where Moira went on her fictional day off as I pulled food from the fridge when Tate asked me how I ended up with his belongings.

"Your mom left them to me when she died. Her new dog walker had to track me down in Boston. Honestly I'm surprised he was able to, he didn't sound very bright on the phone, but maybe that was just grief."

Tate snorted into his plate of food. "Why did she leave it to you? Had you been keeping in touch with her?"

"No. She knew about us though, and I think she just didn't want it ending up for sale somewhere, which is ironic considering that's how she covered her medical bills that last year she was alive."

"What do you mean?"

"Well some people get off on owning stuff that belonged to famous killers." I saw him flinch at my words, but pressed on anyway. "From what I could tell it was just your clothes, things like that. She passed off some of her paintings as yours. She only did that a few times; didn't seem to appreciate the conclusions the shrinks who saw them drew. But anything that showed what a shrew she was - like your journals - never saw the light of day. I have all that stuff, but most of it's in storage in Boston."

"I'm glad you have it." He said after a while.

I couldn't help watching him curiously as he wolfed down some hastily made omelets. "Do you need to eat?"

"No, but I get hungry sometimes and it's nice to have food. This is good by the way."

"Yeah, I'm a regular Julia Child." I snickered at him.

"Still good." He shrugged.

"Do you need to sleep?"

"Not really, but again sometimes it's nice, so you do it, you know?" And it was. Later when we went back upstairs, and he showed me just how much he missed me and loved me one more time, he tucked me against him and we slept, tangled with each other.

It was with regret that I pulled myself away from him the next day, off to pick up groceries and Cal's tuxedo. He was waiting for me when I came back, and we spent the rest of the day in various states of undress around the house, cocooned away from the outside world, making up for lost time and talking about anything and everything.

Well, almost anything. Anything except the happiness killing specter of my husband, my life away from him. Even as Tate watched me cover his brands on my skin and get ready for the wedding of someone I didn't know and couldn't have cared less about we didn't talk about it, but we couldn't ignore it.

He followed me downstairs, looking as sullen as I felt, before pushing me up against the front door and kissing me roughly, possessively. "Promise me." He said raggedly. "Promise me you won't... with him... tonight."

"I won't. Not when I can still feel you inside me." I whispered, pressing my lips to his, lingering like that not nearly as long as I wanted to.


	6. Chapter 6

"You've been gone all day." He pouted, and I twisted in my chair to look at him looking at me like a petulant child. "Scoot." He directed, slipping in behind me. "I like these chairs." He mumbled into my neck as his arms cinched around me.

"They're actually 'chair and a half' chairs."

"Whatever." He said carelessly. "Where were you?"

"School." I was, but only in body. My mind was somewhat closer to home, trying to figure out how I was going to make this work with Tate, and how to even broach the subject. We'd been doing this for a few weeks, and I couldn't tell who was trying to distract who with sex just so that we wouldn't have to have that conversation.

"I'm glad I died before college." He commented lightly. "Seems like a drag."

"Sometimes, but I like it, like learning. Grad school is intense, but now I get to study whatever I want."

He kissed a trail up my neck to my ear, pulling it between his teeth. "Tate, stop." I whined and he did. I didn't bother turning around to see the hurt in his eyes that was surely there at my rebuke. "We need to talk." It wasn't the way I'd imagined this going, it was definitely easing him into it the way I planned, but it had to be done.

"Okay." He said apprehensively.

I twisted around, seating myself cross-legged on the ottoman so I could face him, pulling his hands into my lap. "We need to talk about how this is going to work, Tate."

He sighed. "It's been working."

"No, it hasn't." His eyes snapped to mine, fearful. "Calm down." I murmured, reaching up and tracing the planes of his face with my fingers until he relaxed into them. "You know I can only stay here because of Cal, right? I couldn't afford this house, and he's supporting me while I'm in school."

"I know." He said it so quietly if I hadn't seen his lips move I would have thought I imagined it.

"If you want to keep doing this, it means... it means I have to 'play the happy wife with him' like you said before." I said bitterly.

"I know."

"No, you don't." I snapped. "I have to make him think everything is normal, and it was easy to do when I could... when I didn't hate him touching me. If I stay here, if we keep doing this, I'm going to have to talk and act like I did before. He's going to want time with me to do the same things we used to do, and I don't mean sex, though that too, obviously. I've been putting him off the last few weeks, but I can't do that forever. He could get pissed, divorce me, and then I'd have to leave."

He was quiet, playing with my fingers and tracing where my wedding ring should have been, where it was until I excused myself after dinner to come up here. "I told you I didn't care how or why you came back; I told you even if it meant sharing you. I meant that."

"Tate." I said wearily.

"No, Vi, you listen to me now. Both of us have been willing to do whatever it takes the last few weeks, no matter how much it hurts. I don't like it, but the alternative, you leaving again, I hate it. If I have to watch you with him, I'll do it; I don't care."

I let him pull me down so that we were lying facing each other, the chair serving as a bed, comfortably for the two of us. "I missed you today."

"Tell me what you did, everything." He whispered, carding his fingers through my hair. So I did. I told him about the lectures I had to sit through, the studying I did in the library, the funny couple stuck in traffic next to me who were bouncing foam balls off the inside of the windshield to kill time, everything, all of it. Things I never would have told Cal when he asked me about my day.

* * *

><p>"Are you insane?" I whispered harshly, barely louder than the shower water as it hammered away at the insides of the tub and me.<p>

"Little bit." Tate responded pulling me close, grinding his erection against me.

"You know he's home right? Asleep on the other side of the door."

"Then we'll just have to be quiet, won't we?" My argument that this was both reckless and a throwback to the times of living with my parents died on my lips when he slipped a finger inside of me, pumping it in and out lazily, his wrist putting pressure on my clit and making me moan. "Shh." He teased, before stifling it with a kiss.

Soon enough he had me pressed up against the wall, legs wrapped around him as he filled me, pushing me closer and closer towards letting go with each snap of his hips. When I did it was with his name spilling past my lips in a desperate whine into the shell of his ear. He followed soon after, groaning with pleasure, and mumbling 'I love you' as he set me gently back on my feet, post-coital and blissful.

He stayed in the shower and helped me wash, his fingers making me shiver as they dragged through the soap on my skin despite the heat of the water. "Have I told you before that I love birth control? That I love that I can feel all of you? That you'll have a part of me inside of you all day?"

"Funny considering you're dead and it never mattered either way." I stuttered out, too focused on the way his fingers were working between my legs, making a mockery of his attempt to get me clean. I groaned when his fingers retreated, resting chastely on my hips. "Tease. You forgot to mention how much you like it when I won't let him touch me with your cum still inside me."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said with mock innocence before shoving me under the shower stream. He was gone when I opened my eyes.

* * *

><p>I rubbed at my eyes, trying to dispel the soreness from staring too long at my laptop. I was desperately trying to finish my paper before Christmas. The same screen greeted my eyes when I opened them again, and I shifted my gaze to something more pleasing.<p>

I liked the way Tate was bowed over one of my books, quietly reading as I worked. I missed this. I missed him, and the sex, and everything else, but I missed this just as much; all those quiet times when he was just here. Even before I opened that door and let him back in my life I never let anyone else do this, not even Cal; we'd always kept separate studies.

The phone on my desk rang shrilly, jolting me from my thoughts, and instinctively my hand reached out for it despite the late hour. My mom was already in full flow about the menu for Christmas dinner by the time it made it to my ear. I glanced wearily at the time, noting that just because it was four in the morning here, it was seven in the morning in Florida and she'd be getting the twins ready for school soon.

It seemed like such a good idea to invite them for Christmas. Her and my dad had been fighting for weeks about who the twins would spend the holiday with. My mom and them coming out to spend the holiday with me was a smart compromise, or at least it shut Ben up because if the kids couldn't be with him, they would be with 'family' - like my mom hadn't given birth to them. It had the added bonus of her acting as a buffer between me and Cal's parents and sister who would also be joining us.

But as she babbled into my ear and I watched the smooth expanse of Tate's neck - the part peeking up out of the collar of his sweater, below his messy curls - it seemed the height of folly. All these people here, and my mother among them, there was no way I could pull off the charade that had been fooling Cal for the last month and half. It was too late to back out now though, so as she chattered I made all the noises I was supposed to make, waiting for an opening when I could remind her that just because the sun was up over her house, it wasn't over mine.

"Done for the night?" Tate asked as I hung up.

"Yeah. My brain is pretty much mush at this point." I closed my laptop and pushed myself to my feet, him mirroring my movements. "C'mon, Cal's sleeping at the hospital, let's crash in the guest room." Right now it sounded like the best thing in the world to me. I shed clothes all the way there, too tired to care, and knowing Moira would probably pick them up before I could.

Tate wrapped around me, pulling the blankets over us against the chill. "Why's he working so much?"

"Racking up time so he can be here with his family for Christmas."

"What's that going to be like?"

"It'll be okay. With his sister here they'll get shit faced drunk every night. He'll be passed out long before he can do anything to me." I had only slept with Cal once, and not in the house; a quickie in an empty room at the hospital. I hadn't told Tate, but I knew he wondered, knew he obsessed on it. "I won't get to see you though. With all the people here, it's going to be crazy."

"I'll still see you." He pulled against him tightly for a moment. "But it's not the same."

A week later I was dutifully picking up my mom, brothers, and Cal's family from LAX. I tried to lose myself in the flow of their conversation, in the pleasure of their company. With a few glasses of wine in my dinner that night wasn't torture at least, though my mother mortified me by the way she treated Moira. "It's not like you don't know her." I hissed as we cleaned up the kitchen.

"Yeah, but she's dead."

"Jesus mom, she was dead when you knew her, the only thing that's changed is that now you know."

She was quite for a few minutes before curiosity finally won out. "How did she die?"

"Constance." Moira supplied, appearing out of thin air and seeming to enjoy my mothers shock, but not so much the glass that she dropped and shattered on the floor. Moira bent to clean it up with a scowl. "Yes, Constance. She caught her husband trying to rape me in the master bedroom, and shot us both."

"That's horrible!"

"No, that's Constance." Moira deadpanned. "I'm just happy she didn't die on the property. Being stuck here is bad enough, with her it would have been unbearable."

"Is... is her husband stuck here too?" My mom asked timidly.

"Yes, but I haven't seen him in years. We don't have to be corporeal, you know." She didn't, but nodded like she did. After a few days in the house my mom started treating her just like she used to; sharing cups of tea over the kitchen island and complaining about my dad.

I tried to distract myself with my brothers. They were seven now, which was a pretty fun age; better than when they were lumps in blankets only capable of shitting and crying. But being that age also meant they were rambunctious and needed constant monitoring so as not to end up as snacks for Thaddeus. I loved them, but more than that they were the perfect excuse, and more than I ever had before I volunteered to care for them, lavishing them with an attentiveness that made Cal's mother comment that she was looking forward to grandchildren. The notion was enough to turn my stomach, but my face never betrayed it.

After we put them to bed one night my mom and I cracked open a bottle of wine and retreated to my old room; we hadn't had much chance to talk one-to-one since she got here. Two glassed in she asked me why I had never told Callum about the home invaders who tried to kill us.

"Because it's not a big deal." I shrugged. "I honestly don't think about it that much." Except when I thought about Tate axing that bitch in half to protect me.

"Have you told him about Tate?"

"Why would I?"

"It's part of your life, a big part of it in this house."

"All the more reason not to tell him. What am I supposed to say? 'So when I lived here I fell in love with the ghost of the kid who shot up the local high school, and oh yeah, by the way he tried to get me to commit suicide with him'? Yeah." I scoffed. "Remember how that conversation went with Ben? He thought Tate and I had rigged up some Google hoax to fuck with him at first." My mom burst into laughter at the memory and I couldn't help joining her.

"Have you seen him?" She asked when she finally hiccuped the last of laughter away. I looked down into the depths of my glass, unsure what I should tell her, but my silence answering for me. "Guess so." She said quietly. "Aren't you worried he might do something to hurt you?"

"No." I said hastily. "No, it's not like that anymore. He won't hurt me."

She looked at me appraisingly, but decided not to push the issue, out-right at least. "What does Cal know about your time here?"

"Not much. That we lived here, and things were bad with you and dad. He's never pressed me about it, and if he did I'm not sure what I'd tell him because, again, Ghost Boy."

We drifted to other topics, and when we finished the bottle she tottered her way out the door and down the hall to the guest room she was sharing with the twins. I knew Cal was in bed already, passed out drunk from one too many shots of tequila with his sister. I could probably roll him onto the floor and he wouldn't wake up, but I didn't move, nursing the last of my glass of wine lost in my thoughts.

It had been three days since I had seen Tate and we had another four to go. We decided it was best if we didn't see each other while so many people were here; didn't want to risk someone happening upon us and needing to explain his presence.

I missed him. The thought made me chuckle to myself; 'missed him' was a gross understatement. I yearned for him, craved him like a junkie needing a fix. He was all I thought about no matter how convincing the mask I wore was. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams without his arms around me holding me together.

As I sat there is seemed like a fair trade - my life for an eternity with him - if I could fill this void inside me that had opened up when I'd kissed him a temporary goodbye a few days before. It hurt, physically hurt, this separation, and I didn't know how I had survived seven years without him. The vision of the future that stretched before me, of 'playing the happy wife' with Cal for years was enough to make the parts of me that still felt whole rip apart with pain. He wasn't who I wanted.

I pushed myself out the chair and forced myself into the master bedroom, away from the temptation of pills and razors in the bathroom, of the gas oven in the kitchen, of the temptation of throwing myself down the stairs. I knew when I woke up in the morning, without the influence of the alcohol and loneliness in the late night I'd regret what I was considering.


	7. Chapter 7

I felt his fingers ghosting over my bare calf. "I'm tired." I whispered, my head resting on the back of the chair, my feet propped up on table. He just chuckled, low and throaty, igniting the burn inside me; I knew where his head was. He pushed the table back, dropping my feet to the floor. I opened my eyes, and saw him watching my face intently, purpose in every breath and movement as he kneeled between my legs, leaving one on the floor and putting the other on his shoulder. I closed my eyes again, and felt his lips at my ankle, his tongue flicking out across the bone, tickling, making my leg twitch, and my mouth turn up in a smile.

I could feel the callouses on his hand, rough against my skin despite the lightness of his touch, the ring on his thumb cold and hard, a sharp contrast to the hot softness of his mouth on me. He bit lightly into my flesh, and it made me moan as my walls contracted in anticipation. I ran my fingers into his hair. "God, it might be worth dying for this." I mumbled, more to myself then him, but he stopped and I opened my eyes.

"Don't tease me. You'll leave again, and I'll only have memories." I watched pain tinge his face, and wanted to tell him I was sorry for letting something so stupid slip out, but it died in my throat. There was no right thing to say, so I closed my eyes again, and he went back to my leg, tickling the crook of my knee with his finger before he tugged on it, pulling me to the edge of the chair. I heard him rock back on his heels as his fingers slipped under the hem of my skirt, thumbs rubbing circles on the soft flesh of my thighs.

I could feel the heat building in my core, the wetness leaking out of me at his touch. "Who's teasing now?" He chuckled again, and as his hands pushed the fabric up they were firmer against my skin, pressing up it in little dragging dents. I felt a hand disappear and heard the clinking metal of his belt coming undone, and I smiled knowing he was touching himself as he watched my body react to him.

The feel of his knuckles rubbing against the wetness of my panties made me twitch against him, and moan. "Touch me." It was whiny, and needy, and a little frustrated, and I expected to get my way, but I didn't. I opened my eyes and found him watching my face, one hand stroking his length, the other pressed against me, and I knew he wanted me to beg. "Touch me, Tate, please."

His eyes closed, and his breath hitched as his hips bucked, but he gave in to me, and slipped a finger under the elastic edge, dragging it down across my lips making me moan. "More." I hissed, and slipped the strap of my tank top off, pulling it down, and licking a finger before circling my nipple.

"So impatient." I could hear the smirk in his voice even if I couldn't see it.

"You keep teasing and I might have a full-blown temper-tantrum."

"Oh shit, Vi, not that." All snark and sarcasm, but his hand gripped the fabric that was now just getting in the way, and pulled it off, and then his lips and hand were back, his finger teasing across my slit.

"Put it in." He heard the plea in my voice and slipped a finger inside, his knuckle rough against me, working in and out, and slipping another one in, making my breath hitch, as his thumb pressed down my clit.

"God, Vi you have no idea how good this feels... you around my fingers knowing I make you this wet." He grunted a little, and lost pace for a second, distracted by his own pleasure.

"As good as it feels... knowing I do the same to you... knowing you think about this when you've got your own hand wrapped around your dick." I gasped out as I bucked up against him. I felt his lips on me, his tongue flicked across my nub; his hair tickling my thighs, and I tangled my free hand into it.

"What do you think about when you touch yourself?" He mumbled against me, the vibrations of his voice strange, but pleasant.

Coherent thought was slipping away. "You... the weight and friction of your skin against mine... how big you are how... it kinda hurts at first when my walls have to stretch around you, but how I love the feeling." I moaned and lost my train of thought as his fingers curled inside me, making me clench around them in pleasure. "How I love the feeling of you coming inside me... how your cock twitches and gets even harder right before... God, I love the feeling of your cum in me, hot and sticky... dripping down my thighs after." I chocked off as he fucked another finger into me, his mouth letting out a loud grunting moan that might have been my name if his face wasn't buried in my folds, as he came into his hand.

His pace faltered as he came, but he recovered himself quickly, rubbing his cum along my thigh and attacking my cunt with his fingers and mouth, making me arch up and gasp out his name when I came, hard, around him. As the intensity wore off I was sleepy again, running my hand through his hair where he head rested on my stomach. "I think my knees are bruised." He mumbled.

"I'll have to put a rug in here or something." I pushed him back and took his face in my hands, and kissed him, tasting myself on him, licking it off. "C'mon, I need a nap after that." I led him into the bedroom and curled against him.

"Ugh... roll over."

"What?"

"I hate the smell of Him on the sheets, roll over." I did and he nuzzled his face in my hair.

"I'm sorry. We should have gone in the guest room or something." I lay there worrying my lip for a while before I spoke again. "Can I ask you something?" He made a little noise of assent. "Is this hard for you? I mean I know it is, but after the last few months I wonder if it's hurting you more than it's worth, you know?" I loved it, loved him, but at the same time there was pain there too. It felt like we were living for stolen moments together, and I worried that it would be too much for Tate, having to see me with my husband when I couldn't be with him, like it was getting to be too much for me.

"Yes and no. I really fucking hate him. I mean he's good to you and all, and that's great, but I still want to kill him everytime he touches you." His voice was a little dreamy when he added, "I think the only reason I haven't is because I don't want him stuck here, and even if he can't see it I can see that you're just going through the motions. I know where your head is at when he's touching you and it's not with him."

"Jesus, Tate! You watched us have sex?" He nodded. "You're a fucking masochist." It was bad enough sleeping with Cal, and it had only happened once in the house, and three times since... whatever. I was mortified that Tate was still watching. But he was right, I wasn't really there.

"Yeah, probably. So I hate the charade you have to put on and I have to watch, but when I'm with you, like this, it's worth it because I'm happy and you're here."

"I hate it too." I did; more and more with each passing day. It had been harder since Christmas because every time the hopelessness of the situation crashed down on me, when Tate wasn't around, when I was with Cal, all I could think about was that it didn't have to be this way.

He pulled me tighter against him, and whispered, "I love you." After all this time it still made my heart hammer every time he said it.

I twisted my head around awkwardly and told him I loved him too, and we had a sloppy, but chaste kiss, that made us both giggle and banished the darkness threatening to envelop me.

* * *

><p>She was sick, and I was angry. She had spent all of last night throwing up, and now was curled up in bed. Her husband the doctor was in his study too busy preparing for a conference to worry about her. Normally his indifference to what she was doing was a gift, but when he left her this morning with a kiss on the forehead and a bottle of water on the nightstand I wanted to push him down the stairs. Instead I lay down gently behind her and rubbed her back.<p>

"It's just stomach flu." She mumbled. "I'll be fine in a few days." Before she fell back to sleep. I didn't say anything because it wasn't flu, but arguing wasn't going to make her better either. She had been getting thinner for weeks and was constantly tired. She said it was stress from school, but I knew it was more than that. I'd seen her and Him together; she avoided him, and when she couldn't she was just going through the motions. Every time He touched her she would tense or only be there in body. She wasn't happy, with him anyway, and I knew it was taking a toll on her.

Once she was deeply asleep my anger got the better of me, and I dropped into the study to glare at him, invisibly, from the corner thinking about all the ways I could hurt him because he didn't care about her. He didn't seem to notice or care about what was going on in her head, in her life. He didn't notice how cold she was towards him, how disinterested. Sometimes I thought she could slam heroin in front of him and he wouldn't notice. It was like she was an accessory to his life, and as long as he provided for her material wants, and she gave herself to him every so often everything was fine in his eyes. He wasn't a bad person, he hadn't killed all those people I had, but he didn't deserve her anymore than I did.

He was just pulling another book out of the cabinet when we heard Violet screaming upstairs. Both of us looked at the ceiling and ran out of the room. It took everything I had to remain invisible, but I was only a step behind him as we ran into the bedroom to find her curled in a ball on the bed and groaning in pain, tears streaking her cheeks. "Violet!" He leaned on the bed, his face inches from hers, panic in his voice. "Talk to me, Vi. What's wrong?"

"I don't know." She gasped out, clearly in pain, before she fainted. He flipped the blankets back and turned white; blood was pooled around her legs, spreading out in a grotesque stain across the sheets.

I was rooted to the spot in horror, and when He left the room to let the paramedics in I rushed over to the bed. "Please don't leave me. Please, Vi, I love you." I whispered frantically in her ear. It was my worst fear, her dying outside the house. She was still unconscious, and covered in a cold sweat that was soaking through her thin shirt.

I felt hands on my shoulders, pulling me away, and fought against them until Moira hissed in my ear, "She's not going to die, but you have to let them help her." I willed myself to invisibility and watched as she was put on a stretcher, finally fluttering her eyes and mumbling a little in response to questions before they took her to the hospital.

I was pacing in the kitchen annoying Moira when the phone rang a few hours later. "Hello? ... I'm very sorry to hear that." My heart stopped. "No, I understand. I'll take care of it before you get home. Would you please tell Miss Violet that I'm sorry about what happened? ... Thank you." Her face pinched. "Are you sure that's a good idea? ... No, I don't mind staying. Good-bye." She hung up and faced me. "She had a miscarriage." I just stared at her. "She'll be coming home tonight, and has to rest in bed over the weekend, but she should be fine."

"He wants you stay with her while he goes out of town doesn't he?" She nodded, anger flashing in her eyes. I couldn't believe it; how he could leave her like this.

"I told him I'd stay and help her. I guess this puts a kink in your plans though; I doubt she'll be up for sex all over the house." Of course she knew; just because we didn't see her around when we were together didn't mean she wasn't there. "I wonder..."

"What?" I didn't like the look in her eye.

"I wonder who the father was." I knew it was possible, but I hadn't told Violet that; she was on birth control anyway because of Him, and I hadn't really thought about it beyond that. Moira left to go clean the bedroom of blood, and I sunk down on the floor, my thoughts a mess. I was still there when they walked through the door around dusk, His arm around her waist keeping her steady. She was still weak and pale, and after painfully making her way up the bottom-most steps He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. I could feel the tears streaming down my face as I followed.

He set her gently on the bed, and swept the hair behind her ears. "Are you okay?" She just nodded. "Do you want anything?" She shook her head. "You need to eat a little something, Vi, you lost a lot of blood." I wanted to throw him from the room. I needed to touch her, hold her, tell her I loved her, and he was getting in the way. Find a way to get rid of him, Vi I thought desperately.

"I don't want anything." She gasped and started crying. "This is my fault."

"This isn't your fault." He voice firm as he took her hand in his. "Listen to me Violet." She lifted her eyes to his. "This early on, it's very common to have a spontaneous miscarriage. We still don't know why it happens, but it happens across the board; it wasn't anything you did or didn't do, do you understand?" She nodded and wiped away her tears.

"I just don't understand how I got pregnant in the first place; I've been using Depo-Provera for years."

He shrugged. "Nothing is fool-proof, even with someone who uses it perfectly it can happen, it's just really rare." They were silent for a moment before he spoke again. "Does anything sound good?"

She forced a smile. "Tacos from that little place down on Pico? That sounds good." He squeezed her hand and said he'd be back. As soon as he was gone she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, sadness marring her features. I sat down next to her, and took her hand in mine.

"Vi?" Her eyes were swimming in tears when she looked at me, pulling herself up and putting her arms around my neck, crying into my shoulder. As I held her I didn't think I'd ever felt more helpless, except for the time she'd taken all those pills, but I had saved her then; I didn't know how to help her now. When she stopped I laid her back on the bed keeping one hand on her cheek and other around her hand. I left when I heard His footsteps in the hall, watching invisibly as they ate on the bed.

An hour later she was asleep when his phone rang. He got up as gently as he could, and I moved to follow him in the hallway when I heard him say her dad's name; he was leaning against the wall. "She just fell asleep. I don't know; you know how she is. She probably won't talk about it. She seemed calm when I got home from getting her dinner." Yeah except for the puffy, red-rimmed eyes that betrayed her crying. "The whole thing is weird. She's in pain still, I had to carry her upstairs, but there was a lot more blood than there should have been ... I told her the truth, it's rare, but it happens."

The whole thing is weird. Maybe if both parents are alive, but if the father was dead? The more I heard the more convinced I was. Violet could never know. She was torn up about it already, if she knew the truth it would be so much worse for her. I went back in the bedroom and watched her sleep as He went back downstairs. The thought fleetingly crossed my mind that it I could just not tell her it was possible and try again. But as I looked at her she seemed so frail. I couldn't put her through the pain of another miscarriage, and then what if something worse happened? What if it killed her outside of the house? I put my head in my hands. The whole thing was impossible, and I let it go.

The bigger problem was keeping the secret from her. It was so much easier when she was a teenager and condoms were a necessity, or at least a necessary pretense. She didn't want to admit she knew I was dead because she thought I didn't know, so she went along with it. I couldn't just suddenly insist on using them. She wasn't stupid; she'd put two and two together and figure it out. She can't know. I would do whatever I had to do to protect her.

It was late, around four in the morning, when I left Violet to find Moira. I was surprised to find her in His office, sitting in an unoccupied chair, watching him with a sour look on her face. "What are you doing in here?"

"I was curious I guess." She still had her eyes fixed on His back as he worked at the computer. "He loves her. He doesn't want anyone but her, or he'd be able to see the youthful me." I thought she was about to launch into a sermon on the ills of adultery, but she surprised me. "He's not a very good husband though, is he? His wife just had a miscarriage, and he's going out of town, not even bothering to look after her tonight. He seemed more worried about the paper he's presenting than her."

"I don't think it was his." I said quietly.

"He doesn't know that." Her tone was bitter. "How is she?" I couldn't find the words, just stared at Him as the tears blurred my vision. "I'm sorry." I scoffed; I found that hard to believe. "I am. Just because I don't approve of adultery doesn't mean I can't be sorry."

"Thanks." I was silent for a moment, getting control of myself before I spoke again. "She can't know Moira. She's so hurt. If she knew..." I couldn't finish, but I thought she understood.

"Will it happen again?" She asked shrewdly.

"No."

She nodded; she'd keep the secret.


	8. Chapter 8

**I have updated this story with several new chapters and expanded others; some changes are small, but most aren't. The only chapters that remain the same are the first & last. If you're going to log in as a 'guest' to review chapters you've already reviewed please, please, please sign them with your username so I know who you are. Thank you all for reading, and reviews are always loved and appreciated!**

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><p>"Forget it." I snapped, pushing him off me, and storming out, slamming the door behind me. It had been two months since the miscarriage, and just as long since Tate had touched me.<p>

Well, not exactly, he'd gotten me down to my underwear a dozen times, and then he'd pull away, saying he didn't want to hurt me, using his fingers and tongue to please me instead. He hadn't said anything, but I guessed he was watching the first time Cal and I tried to have sex after it happened, when it was painful, but that had been nearly six weeks ago I wasn't in pain anymore.

I pulled my shirt back on and grabbed a jacket on my way out the door. Cal was working the night shift tonight, and I had hoped... but I should have known better. I put on the loudest, angriest music I could, and drove away, going nowhere in particular. I pulled into a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes; I hadn't smoked since the miscarriage, I couldn't help feeling guilty, but I needed one. I drove until my anger waned, and kept driving while I mulled the situation over.

He wasn't there when I got home; I didn't see him for days, and then weeks. I felt myself spiraling into the darkness at his absence, or indifference, or anger, or whatever it was. I had even ventured down the basement stairs to see if he would come out, but he was just not there. I found Moira in the kitchen when I came up, scrubbing the counter, looking cross. "Where is he?"

"I don't know. We can hide from the living and dead if we want, and I haven't seen him in weeks."

The thought I had been trying to suppress finally surfaced, and I couldn't keep it inside. "He doesn't want me anymore does he?" I could feel the tears, hot and burning my eyes as the realization sunk in.

"You have a husband Miss Violet. Maybe not the best one, but maybe that's the effect of the house. If you can't be happy with him leave here, and don't look back." Her voice was harsh, and full of judgment.

I grabbed a bottle of vodka and hid in my study, getting completely shit faced, hoping to be numb, but not really getting there. I could have gone back to Cal, been good to him and for him, but I didn't want him. I didn't want to hurt him, but I didn't want him either because while I loved him, I wasn't in love with him. After that I spent as much time out of the house as I could. If Cal didn't believe my bullshit about working on my project he never said anything. When I was home I tried to be with him, to care about whatever was going on in his life, but I felt empty.

I met David, a fellow graduate student a few weeks later, and it made me wonder just how far down the rabbit hole I'd gone when I let him kiss me one night. I didn't really feel anything for him, it just made me not hurt as much for a little while. It wasn't love, it wasn't anything other than a convenient painkiller when I let him fuck me a few weeks later.

Moira was in the kitchen when I got home. "We have to get out of here." My voice was flat, emotionless. "I don't care what you have to do, just make it happen." I leaned against the doorway; eyes closed feeling totally numb to everything. When she didn't respond, I said "Fine. I'll burn it down."

As I made my way up the stairs of my beautiful, expensive prison all I could think was What would he think? It wasn't Callum I had in mind.

* * *

><p>It's amazing how quickly things can fall apart when you don't care. It's even faster when you're rapidly self-destructing; when you want to destroy.<p>

When I was home, which was as little as possible, I was cold and distant with Cal. I couldn't stand to have him touch me because his touch wasn't the one I wanted. I ducked his kisses, walked away when he put a hand on me, pushed him off me as soon as he fell asleep. After a while he stopped talking to me because my answers were usually monosyllabic. Moira got more and more surly; I didn't see Tate; the house was quiet.

When I wasn't home I was at school, buried in the stacks frantic to get my research project done despite the shit storm I'd turned my life into. Having that to focus on might have been the only thing keeping me sane. That and the few hours a week I'd spend in David's apartment, but even that was like walking through an emotional minefield lately.

I was reclining on his bed, naked under the sheets, staring at the ceiling as I smoked when he spoke at last. "Shouldn't you be going?" His voice was ice cold.

"What the hell is your problem exactly? This is every man's dream. I fuck you and I leave; I don't expect anything from you. You're acting like a girl." I clambered over him to get my clothes.

"Because that's not what I want."

"What do you want? Me to leave my husband and move in with you?"

"No, I want you to fucking care." I didn't say anything as I pulled my shirt on, and grabbed my shoes. "If you love him so much why are you here?"

"Because he's not the one I'm trying to replace, he never was, and the person that I want can't be." _Because I'm using you, idiot._

"If he doesn't want you why can't you give this a chance then?" He must have realized he crossed a line by the look on my face because the anger that was there on his was replaced by fear in an instant. I walked out.

I got soaked coming into the house; I'd left my umbrella at David's. When I walked in Cal called to me from his study. He was sitting at his desk looking upset, for a second I thought someone had died. "Where have you been?"

"At the library." It was a replay of the Cold War my parents had waged before their divorce. The only difference was that this time I wasn't stuck in the middle.

"Really? Because I couldn't find you there."

I leaned against the door frame. "Suddenly you give a shit?" He just stared back at me stonily. "You weren't so concerned after the miscarriage." I couldn't keep the amused disbelief out of my voice.

"Is that what this is about? Because we can try again. Just because you've had one miscarriage doesn't mean you can't have a healthy baby."

"That is such a typical answer for you." I scoffed.

"What does that mean?"

"Your way of dealing with problems is to give me something, buy your way out of it, instead of dealing with the problem. I don't want to move to L.A., so your solution is this absurd house."  
>"Then what's the problem?"<p>

"You don't care. This isn't about the miscarriage, it's about how you dealt with it. I was hurting and you ignored it. You were on a plane and gone within twelve hours of me getting home from the hospital."

"I'm trying to make a good life for you. I do everything for you, for us."

"Bullshit." I spat. "The only person you're doing it for is yourself. If you cared you wouldn't have left me home alone with the maid for three days." I took a deep breath reining in my anger. "I was in the film & television vaults. They don't let you in there unless you have written permission from your adviser to use it." I was done wasting time on this argument because it was true what I was saying, but it wasn't really the problem. It was just a convenient, hurtful excuse, no matter how much truth there was to it.

When I got out of the shower he was already in bed. I crawled in, lying with my back towards him. I felt him roll over, then his hand running up my side. "Not tonight, Cal." I said it harshly; I was still pissed off, and I couldn't believe he had the gall to touch me after what had happened downstairs.

"When? Because it's been months since we had sex. You barely let me touch you anymore!" He sat up. "Is there someone else? Is that what the problem is?"

I got out of bed and sat in the chair opposite. "Yes." It wasn't an answer he wanted to hear; he hadn't wanted truth. The only reason he asked was because he wanted to hear me deny it whether the denial was a lie or not. He was stunned into silence, but after a few minutes he got up, and flipped on the light so he could grab his clothes and shove them into an overnight bag.

I watched silently from the chair as he whirled around the room finally slamming the dresser drawer so hard it made me jump. His back was to me when he asked who it was. When I didn't answer he turned to face me. "Was it even my baby that you killed?"

"Oh, so now I'm the one who killed it? What happened to 'it's not your fault it happens and we don't know why'?"

His face hardened, and he took a threatening step towards me, and for a split second I wondered if Tate was watching, and if he was if he'd let him hurt me. "Yeah, it was your fault. So tell me, was it mine?"

It wasn't like I was getting knocked up by Ghost Boy. "Yes it was. This started after." My voice was hard and icy, but quiet, almost a whisper.

"Why should I believe you? How long have you been whoring around and lieing to me?"

"I really don't give a shit if you believe me." I knew him well enough to know that he recognized the truth of my words, it was just his anger making him lash out.

He made to leave, but checked on the threshold. "Why?"

"Because I'm not happy here."

"So this was my fault?"

"No, I'm just not happy here."

"I have another conference this weekend. I'll stay at a hotel until I leave, and when I get back we'll talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about." He turned and looked at me, his mouth open like he was trying to form words before walking out. When his car pulled out of the driveway all I felt was a numb finality.

* * *

><p>I could feel the house vibrating around me in anticipation; there was anger in the air and it was excited. From far away I could hear muffled voices, angry voices. For the first time in months I took my form, coming out of the shadows in the master bedroom. A sort of vindictive joy washed through me as Violet told Him that she had cheated on him. Granted he didn't have to watch her with another man like I did, but as I looked at his face I wondered how many times I had worn the same expression.<p>

Moira popped into existence next to me, equally invisible to the living, a sour look on her face. "Stupid girl!" She would think that. "You should have just told her the truth about the baby."

"It was worth it."

"Will it still be worth it when she leaves, again?" She said pitilessly. "She won't stay here. You've driven her out of the house for a second time." Her words felt like knives, cutting deep wounds in my flesh. She disappeared. _You know why I'd leave you alone? Because I care about your feelings more than mine_. I had kept my promise.

* * *

><p>I went downstairs and pulled a bottle out of the liquor cabinet without even noticing what it was, grabbing the pack of cigarettes out of my purse on the way back to my study. I dropped into a chair, leaving the lights off, and taking a drink straight from the bottle. Blech. Tequila. Well it would work.<p>

"Still the sullen, sulky teenager I remember, I see." I turned and saw Hayden standing the door. "You two are kinda perfect for eachother, you know?" She sat herself in the chair opposite me.

"What do you want?" I said flatly.

"Hmmm… just a drink I guess. So tell me how, how's the family? Mother doing well?" She sneered. I felt around for that burning ember of hate inside of me, but couldn't find it. As I looked at her, mostly I just felt pity.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" She scoffed.

"My dad. Everybody got the shit end of that stick. I get it now, what you saw in him."

Her façade of anger and bravado crumbled to bits, and she let out a sigh. "Is he sorry?"

"Guilty mostly, I think. He doesn't talk about it. Not to me anyway." I handed her the bottle.

"Well that's something." She winced as the alcohol burned her throat.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm stuck here."

"No shit. I mean why are you here talking to me?"

She shrugged. "Your little lovers spat with the hubby got the house humming, so I was curious."

"I'd ask why I haven't seen you before, but that's a stupid question, isn't it?" I cocked an eyebrow. "So do you know why I haven't seen him for months?"

"Nope." She took another swig. "No one has seen him as far as I know."

"How does that work, I thought you guys couldn't leave?"

"You don't really have a form; you sort of sink into the house, but you're still vaguely aware of what's going on around you, kind of like being asleep. It's easier to pass time that way." I watched her intently. She seemed perfectly at ease and civil once she realized she wasn't going to get a rise out of me. Maybe it was just time that had mellowed her. Either way, it was surprising. We drank in silence for a while before she spoke again. "How is he?"  
>Her voice was quiet, but there was a note of shame prominent in it.<p>

"Okay, I guess. We're not really that close anymore."

"Happy?"

"Not really. They got divorced a few years ago, and I don't think he's handling it well." She nodded to herself. Maybe she thought he wasn't suffering enough. She was probably right.

She seemed to pull herself out of her reverie, and leaned back against the chair. "So what are you going to do?"

"I was trying to figure it out before you barged in." I smirked at her for a moment, and then put my head in my hands. "What was it like… when I left before?"

"Same as it is now. I only saw him when there were new owners in the house. He was… aggressive about getting them out." She seemed to be reliving something, and wasn't really looking at me. "I used to think it was stupid, how he was, because there was no way you'd come back." Her eyes finally focused on me. "Guess I was wrong."

"Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't." I took another swig from the bottle before I lit a cigarette.

"Maybe." She conceded. "I'd tell you to run far away from here, but that would be hypocritical of me; I would have stayed for your dad if that's how it was. Then again, I'm living proof that love makes you crazy." She got up and walked out leaving me to my thoughts.

By the time she left I had a respectable buzz going, and started to relax and sort through my emotions. I felt bad about Cal; he wasn't a bad person really, just a bad husband to me. There was guilt there that I had hurt him, but nothing else; I didn't regret what I'd done to cause that guilt, and if I had to do it over again I wouldn't change anything. If nothing else I'd be gone when he got back since there was no reason to drag this out, and I wanted to make it as easy for him to move on as possible.

Tate was the bigger problem though. In a sea of endless possibilities I only had two real options. I could leave and never come back; try to fill my life with things that made up for the fact that I didn't have him. My only other option was to die in the house and stay forever. I passed the night carefully weighing my options, listing the pros and cons of each before finally coming to a decision just as the eastern sky tinged pink.


	9. Chapter 9

The thing about trying to figure out what to pack is that once you get past the non-essentials, underwear and iPod and laptop, it gets tricky. Cal would be coming home tomorrow, and I was sitting on the floor of my study holding several books in my hands, trying to decide which one was the most important. I heard feet scuffing the floor behind me, but didn't bother turning around.

"What are you doing?" There was anger, and panic, and sadness in his voice, but it was so much more than its parts.

"You told me you'd always be here, if that's what I wanted."

"Yeah." He breathed out.

"You left me alone."

"So did you."

"So it was pay back?"

He sat down behind me and brushed my hair aside, kissing the nape of my neck. "No."

"Then what was it?"

"I guess you could say I was keeping a promise. I told you I cared about your feelings more than mine, and I did, do; that's why I stayed away."

"Is that all the answer I'm going to get?"

There was a long, guilty silence before I broke it. "Why didn't you let me die?"

"I told you I loved you, and your tried to kill yourself. You were scared of me after you learned what I did. I loved you enough not to want you stuck here when you wouldn't be happy." He sat down and nuzzled his face into my neck. "I'm sorry I left you alone; I did it because I love you." I turned my head to look at him. "Stay with me, please, even if it's just for tonight."

I let him lead me to the bedroom. It reminded me so much of our first time together; a mutual quiet desperation to just be together before we were separated indefinitely. So much time had passed, but a lot of things never changed: I still only felt whole and myself when I was with Tate.

He was looking into my eyes like he was trying to memorize their depths when I felt him sink into me. I reveled in the feeling of the press and pressure of him against me and inside of me. I wanted to remember how safe and happy I felt under him, how much we loved and longed for each other. We came together, and afterwards we held each other tightly, whispering things we'd never said before, and probably wouldn't again, but needing to say and hear them all the same. The only thing we never talked about was me leaving. We fell asleep tangled together, and when I woke up the sun had barely risen.

I left the bed as gently as I could, not wanting to disturb him, and padded softly down to my office to pull a letter from the desk drawer. I stuck it to the door of the bathroom and went inside, pulling some sleeping pills and a razor from the cabinet as the water ran. I took a double dose of the pills and got in waiting for them to take effect. I heard Tate yelling from the bedroom and his frantic footsteps that passed the door and then hurried back. It was absolutely silent for a heartbeat and then he was next to me. He crouched down and took my hand in his, his expression unfathomable, asking me silent questions.

"I wasn't ready before; I was scared. I'm not anymore." He had both of his hands wrapped around the one of mine I had hanging out of the tub. "Will you stay with me?" It was childish, and my voice shook a little because it was still frightening, the magnitude of the choice I was making, but he nodded solemnly. "Will you be there when I wake up?"

"I'll always be here with you." He breathed.

"There's a manila envelope in my desk with your name on it. Have it for me when I wake up." I was worried I wouldn't remember why I was doing this so I had written myself a long letter detailing everything from the move to my decision a few days ago. It also contained several thousand dollars in cash, the proceeds from pawning my wedding ring the day before; at least Halloween would be fun.

The pills were starting to take effect, and my lids were drooping. His hand cupped my cheek. "Vi?"

I forced my eyes open and showed him the razor in my hand. "I waited too long. Can you?" He pulled the arm furthest from him across my body and made deep vertical cuts, making me wince. When he was done I dropped it in the water, the blood blooming around me. He did the same to my other arm, but held my hand in his. I felt the blood flowing down, coating our hands, bonding us together as we sat there. "This is more romantic than my wedding." I mumbled, and felt Tate press his lips to mine.

* * *

><p>Her face was inches from mine. I was waiting; I had been waiting all day. I had moved us into the little workshop built along one side of the garage that no one else could get into; no one alive anyway, and the dead didn't care enough to bother. I couldn't let her wake up in the house; it would hurt her too much. So we were cocooned in the blankets I stole from the guest room, on top of a dense foam mat I'd moved in here after the last owners fled and left it behind.<p>

He hadn't gotten home yet to find the body, and my nerves felt like they were frayed and pulling apart. I didn't want her to be conscious for that, and as every minute ticked down the likelihood it would happen got greater and greater. It wasn't my only worry either. I was terrified by her decision. It was so much like the last time she tried to kill herself, and I worried that she would regret it. She hadn't wanted me to stop her this time; she didn't say anything about it before, and had tried to hide away from me when she did it.

I could have stopped her, I guess, saved her one more time. I didn't though because I was selfish; I had already endured six years without her, and if I didn't find a way to keep her here I'd never see her again, I was sure of it. In that moment I didn't really care if she'd regret it or not; she was stuck here, with me forever. But that was the problem; what if she woke up and didn't want me? Once my selfishness waned, shame followed in its wake, and nasty little thoughts started picking at my brain.

"Why didn't you save her again?" I looked away from Violet's face to see Moira sitting on a battered old trunk at the other end of the room.

"She didn't want me to."

"She didn't want you to the last time either." She snapped.

"She didn't know it meant being stuck here forever the last time. She knows now, and this was her choice." Moira held her tongue, silently glaring at me across the small space. "What was I supposed to do? Save her and force her out of the house? Make her go away?"

"You're a selfish little monster." Her voice was full of revulsion.

"You wouldn't understand." I choked out. "You've never loved anyone in life or death. Love makes you selfish; you always want to feel it, and you'll do anything to keep feeling it. She's hurting her family, everyone, to keep feeling it, and I'm risking her regret."

She disappeared, and I started watching Violet again. I kept trying to remind myself that she had chosen this; she had chosen me, and this semblance of life. It didn't work. As I watched her all my shortcomings rose up, almost palpable in their dimensions. There was nothing worthwhile here, nothing to love. Even as a child I had been unlovable; the cocksucker had taught me as much. I made her silent promises, bargaining with fate or God or whatever for her happiness.

* * *

><p>I was so warm and comfortable that I didn't want to wake up. I felt a hand on my face, warm and calloused and gentle, the thumb grazing over my cheek, and I opened my eyes to find Tate watching me. "It's okay. Everything is going to be okay, I love you." His voice was too quiet and strained to be reassuring. "Do you remember?"<p>

I closed my eyes and thought back. "Kind of. I remember why I did, and you finding me. After that it's kind of like images, you know?" I remembered the blood, my blood, covering our hands. I sat up trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes, and took in the unfamiliar space. "Where are we?"

He explained about moving me to the garage, and how we were hidden away. "We can stay in here as long as we need to." He picked up a carton if cigarettes from beside the makeshift bed and smiled at me. "I came prepared."

"Is he… did he find… has he come home yet?" I really hated putting Callum through this, but it was the only way. I closed my eyes and tried to push away the guilt.

"No." His voice was full of stress and worry as he watched the emotions play across my face. A thick, suffocating blanket of silence had descended before he spoke again, his voice on the verge of tears, broken and pained. "Vi, you still want this don't you?" I opened my eyes and took in the desolation on his face.

"I don't have any regrets." I whispered. "I'm just sorry that I have to put Cal through finding the body and telling my parents; all the messy viscera of death." I felt his hand rubbing my arm. "I'm where I want to be." He pulled me down, holding me tightly against his chest. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"This. Taking care of me. Making it easier."

"That's all I've ever wanted to do from the first time I saw you." He kissed the top of my head.  
>Once the wonderment and worry wore off I was tired again. I yawned. "I must have been asleep, or whatever for a while. Why am I so tired?"<p>

"Because you're new. It will wear off in a few days." He said gently and I relaxed into his side, listening to the soft patter of rain on the roof above us feeling weirdly happy. It was an odd condition for me; I had never really been a happy person, and I didn't quite know how to handle it. When he started murmuring Keats I smiled at the contrast; he was… well… a mass murdered, and yet with me, cocooned under the blankets, he was also a hopeless romantic. It was always a dichotomy I had struggled with; he would always be the boy who cried when he told me he loved me, and the one who had killed 15 people at Westfield High. But it was always all him, and I loved him.

His voice was soft and full of emotion and the patter of the rain on the roof was soporific. I was drifting in and out when I heard the automatic garage door kick to life. I sat up, looking at the wall that Cal was on the other side of, my emotions chaotic.

He tugged me back down to him, kissing me roughly before I buried my face in his chest; one of his hands over my exposed ear, the other clutching me against him protectively. It felt like an eternity later that I felt his voice rumble through his chest, and he released me. "It's done." He said simply.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Moira. Do you want to know the details?" I just shook my head. "We'll get him to leave soon enough, but until then you don't have to see him if you don't want to." He reached his hand up and cupped my cheek. "It will be okay, I promise. Are you still tired?" When I thought about it I was, so we lay back the way we were, and I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the rain and his voice.

* * *

><p>"I hate this game."<p>

"That's because I always kick your ass." She smirked at me as she pulled a card off the stack. "Ha! You lose two units from your army." I grumbled but removed the pieces. As soon as I was done with Callum this stupid game was going in the trash. "Well it's not my fault you suck at strategy games. Two more moves and I'm going to crush your stupid Continental Army." She was hunched over the board, cigarette between her fingers, looking incredibly smug.

"Your strategy for getting rid of Him hasn't been so successful." She gave me a fake half smile and flipped me off. "I want to be the British next time." I stared at the board trying to find a move away from her attack, but I couldn't see any.

"I'll just beat you worse; you have the advantage you know." She wiped my men out, and smiled at me. "But if it makes you feel better, fine." I should just light the board on fire. "So what are your plans?"

"To kill him."

"Payback for losing every time?"

I smiled. "Yeah."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks." She lay back on the bed, and I moved the board to lie next to her. "Seriously though, what are you going to do?"

"Lure him into the basement and let him meet Thaddeus." I couldn't suppress the glee in my voice at the thought. I'd bet he'd piss himself just like that little cheerleader before I shot her.  
>"I still think I should be there."<p>

"No." My voice was emphatic and firm. We'd talked about it a lot, but I wouldn't budge. If He knew Violet was still here he'd be tempted to stay and we couldn't have that. She sighed next to me, but didn't fight me on it; I knew she thought it would freak him out, but I wasn't so sure, and I wasn't going to risk it. "I am feeling a little nervous though." I said seriously as I rolled on top of her. "Wanna make out for a while before I go?" She laughed and tried to push me off. "Who has the advantage now?" I asked, sarcasm heavy in my voice.

"You win." She reached her lips to mine, and kissed me.

"Fuck you two are revolting."

Violet startled under me. "Damn it, Hayden!"

"Seriously. Eternity is going to suck having you two around."

"Jealous?" I sneered before Violet punched me playfully in the side. "Ow, fuck, there's no need for that."

"Be nice."

"Nice to see you've met your match psycho-boy. Anyway, play time; he's asleep." She said cryptically; Violet groaned.

"It's going to be okay." I whispered, and kissed her swiftly before I was gone, coming out of the shadows in the master bedroom.

I watched the man sleeping in the bed in front of me and let my anger simmer to the surface. I had promised Vi I wouldn't kill him, but that didn't mean I couldn't hurt him. We had tried being nice about this, for Violet's sake, for the last month but it wasn't happening, so now it was time to do it my way. I picked up a heavy book on the small table next to me, and dropped it flat on the floor; it landed with a loud smack, stirring him from sleep. "You need to leave." He sat up, confused, his eyes raking the dark room until he spotted me. "She doesn't want you here."

"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" He whipped around to open his nightstand.

"Looking for this?" I pointed the gun at him, his gun, and he froze in fear. "You know, it's been a while since I held a gun in my hand. I miss the weight of it sometimes." I looked down at it, my thumb caressing the side as I did. "Have you ever shot anyone? Probably not; you're a doctor, so there's that whole 'do no harm' thing, isn't there?" He was frozen in fear. "I have; lots of people." I smiled at him. "In a funny way that's how I met Violet."

"How do you know my wife?" He spluttered.

"She's not your wife." I snapped. "But you see if I hadn't killed all those people the cops wouldn't have killed me, and I wouldn't have met her. I've wondered sometimes if that's why I had to die, so I could be here for her. I like to think of it that way." I let out a sigh. "I don't really believe it though. I mean what benevolent God would give me her as a gift? That's not really the point though. She doesn't want you here."

"Who?" He sounded completely bewildered.

"Violet." I said her voice softly, reverentially. I looked back at the gun, and suddenly felt revolted by it. I let it clatter to the floor and rubbed my hand on my jeans as if I could remove the taint of it from my skin.

"She's dead." His voice was harsh and angry. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

He mirrored my movements as I stood up. I expected him to shrink from me, but he didn't and it gave me hope that maybe I would get an excuse to hurt him. "You could say I'm the other man, but that's not quite right; you were the trespasser."

"You slept with _my wife_?" He screamed.

"She was never yours!" I screamed back. "We've always belonged to each other, and now we always will. I should thank you for bringing her back, but I can't. I spent too many nights watching you defile her to be thankful. It was a little easier though, knowing she was thinking of me when your dick was in her." I smirked. "And it was my baby, by the way, not yours." I disappeared, reappearing at the end of the hall. I could hear his frantic scrambling, and then he was in the doorway looking at me. He charged down, sidestepping Beau with one horrified glance, but I was gone, waiting at the foot of the stairs in the foyer.

He spotted me from the second story landing, and flew down the stairs, but the only person waiting for him was Maria, murmuring like a pathetic broken record, making him scream in fear. He caught sight of me again as I passed into the dining room where the Dhalia was laid out in all her dismembered glory. He checked on the door when he saw her, fighting down the vomit; I almost laughed. For a doctor he seemed to have a weak stomach. He focused on me though, and lunged across the room, barely giving me time to disappear through the basement door.

I was sitting in the old white rocking chair when he found me, storming up and shaking from anger and fear, but before he could do anything Thaddeus laid him flat on his back making me howl with maniacal laughter as I watched them struggle. Moira ran out of the shadows and screamed 'go away' banishing the little freak to the shadows before she drug the bloody and bruised doctor to his feet.

I watched invisibly from the foyer as he bolted out the door, and a moment later his car sped off down the driveway. Violet appeared at my side, and I wrapped an arm around her as she rested her head on my shoulder. I couldn't help smiling at her in triumph. She just rolled her eyes and wrapped an arm around me.


End file.
